Vodkafan's newbie Napoleonic thread

[vodkafan]

Am I allowed to start a thread which will have all my dumb questions in it? I have a lot of thoughts and questions and considered they would be better all in one place. I apologise if my thoughts come out a bit jumbled. I am after all kinds of advice and opinions from experienced gamers. I might not take it but I would like to hear it anyway 

I have a long term project to do some Napoleonics of about a brigade a side in 28mm.
For a long time now I have been collecting unpainted figures as they come up second hand.
I am still looking at rulesets .  A visit to my pal this morning furnished me with Sharpe Practice 2 and Chosen Men to read through and compare.
I am not sure if either of these will be what I am looking for brigade sized games though.

I haven't even painted a single figure yet, but one thing irks me already, and that is the difference in size and organisation between British and French battalions. Surely a good set should reflect that? And yet  it seems most rules have bns of ALL nationalities with 24 figures.
This is why I wanted the extra figs.

British bn has 10 companies total (supposed to be @100 men but usually about 80)
at 1:20 that should be 10 bases if based in 4s, plus command stands (say 48 figs total)

A French bn  has only 6 companies, but they are larger (on paper 140, but usually @120)
At 1:20 this works out rather neatly at 6 bases of 6 figures per base .  (say @40 with command)

So I have got the idea now to do a bn of each in this format just to see if it looks good visually, then look around for some rules that might allow me to play a medium sized game like that.

So I suppose my first question is, why do most rules I have heard about seem to use 24 figure bns as standard?

[janner]

At 1:20(ish) British battalions are traditionally represented by 30 models with 36-strong French battalions. However, rules like Black Powder don't use figure ratios and rules that use actual campaign strengths mean smaller units.

[vodkafan]

At 1:20(ish) British battalions are traditionally represented by 30 models with 36-strong French battalions. However, rules like Black Powder don't use figure ratios and rules that use actual campaign strengths mean smaller units.

Hi Janner, thanks for the reply, surely that doesn't make sense? The British battalions should be the larger 

[janner]

Not if you dip into strength returns. Most British battalions campaigned at c.600 strong. Guards battalions were more likely to be larger c.800

[Jabba]

A lot of the more recent rulesets don't use figure ratio and seem to rely more on unit frontages with the number of figures up to you and having no game relevence. This has the advantage that you can base once and chop and change rules. Our club members have their napoleonics based to the scheme from Shako 2, but we also use them for Black Powder and General d'Armee as these two rule sets don't really specify basing other than both sides roughly the same.

To represent unit strengths Black Powder uses number of bases. As an example using our basing scheme, a Standard infantry unit would be three bases, four for a Large unit, two for Small and one for Tiny. When designing a scenario based on a historic O.O.B I look for the average strength across the combatants and call this Standard then adjust from there.

I have blogged on how mine are based here and  here hope this proves helpful.

Welcome to the mad world of Napoleonics.

Tony.

[vodkafan]

Hi Jabba thanks yes that is useful.

[Melnibonean]

On a modelling level: Don't count Command Figures (commanders, standards, drums, sappers etc.) as separate "add-ons." They only make up a small proportion of the battalion overall and in most cases only represent a few actual troops. When looking at ratios they would most likely only add up to one figure. But because we players like to see them in all their pretty uniforms we include them in our modeled units.

In my experience it's best to use them to substitute regular troop/figures . Mount them in such a way that they sit at the center of the battalion in column or in line. The other way to represent them is on a separate base which is placed in front or behind the unit and plays no other part other than looking good.

For example: